Half-wit Whitt in “‘Big Sister Is Watching You’ wrote: “… Here occurs a little rub whose effects are just as observable in a free enterprise system, which is in practice materialist (whatever else it claims or supposes itself to be), as they would be under an atheist Socialism, if one were ever to deliver that material abundance that all promise. The rub is that the pursuit of happiness, as an end in itself, tends automatically, and widely, to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure, with a consequent general softening of the fibers of will, intelligence, spirit. No doubt, Miss Rand has brooded upon that little rub. Hence, in part, I presume, her insistence on “man as a heroic being” “with productive achievement as his noblest activity.” For, if Man’s “heroism” (some will prefer to say: “human dignity”) no longer derives from God, or is not a function of that godless integrity which was a root of Nietzsche’s anguish, then Man becomes merely the most consuming of animals, with glut as the condition of his happiness and its replenishment his foremost activity. So Randian Man, at least in his ruling caste, has to be held “heroic” in order not to be beastly. And this, of course, suits the author’s economics and the politics that must arise from them.”
Here’s the first of Whitt’s problems.. He did not understand Rand, Human Nature or Atlas Shrugged. If he did he would not write something as stupid as Man “being reduced to glut as the condition of his happiness”. That’s not Man.. Yes, Man is the most consuming of animals but Man has the most capable mind so there’s no way to conclude he will loose what made him successful once he becomes successful. Whitt could as easily concluded that Man would become even better in both his consumption and his morals.
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